Chapter 157
Galad Gorge.
A rugged region at the western edge of the Roag Margraviate.
The sky there was dyed black.
The dreary, viscous sky looked less like storm clouds than a bog.
-Drip. Drip.
Black rain fell from the sky.
The rain did not vanish when it struck the ground, instead drying into black stains.
The vegetation lost its vivid green, and animals collapsed onto the ground.
The earth was gradually being stained black.
It was a sight that brought a demonic realm to mind.
“Horrible.”
Richard, who had been watching it, spoke quietly.
The army dispatched from the Empire was currently stationed at Galad Gorge.
In a safe location untouched by Rahav’s despair.
But Rahav continued to move. This place would be corrupted before long as well.
I lightly stretched to loosen up.
“Are you really going to be all right on your own?”
Richard voiced his concern.
“I understand how you feel, but I’m worried you may be acting recklessly.”
With a spoonful of malicious intent mixed in, he was basically asking whether I had gone mad, blinded by the prospect of glory.
Richard had been saying things like this ever since I asked the Emperor to let me subjugate Rahav alone.
Was it only Richard?
Aurora, Helena, everyone connected to me—even people I didn’t know—had scolded me for being foolhardy.
For a moment, I thought I’d somehow acquired dozens of parents.
“I’m really fine. More importantly, it’s obvious they wouldn’t be much help.”
I said that while gesturing toward the rear of the army’s encampment.
There were countless soldiers and knights there, but every one of them was in poor condition.
Even though they were outside the miasma’s domain, its effects were slowly seeping in.
That alone was enough to leave them unable to think straight.
And he wanted me to enter Rahav’s domain and fight alongside those people?
“Hmm.”
Richard apparently thought it was unreasonable as well, because he did not bother answering.
“I’m fine. There can’t be anyone in the world who wants freedom more than I do. Why would someone like that go off to die?”
“Hmm….”
“I’ve thought this through, so please stop worrying. Nothing will get done like this.”
What I needed right now was encouragement, not concern.
Give me a victory spell, will you.
“……I understand. I’ll trust you.”
“I’ll live up to your expectations.”
After finishing my stretches, I took a step forward.
I crossed the barrier the mages had set up and entered the area drenched in black rain.
My breathing became slightly labored.
An oppressive force stronger than anything I had felt until now pressed down on my skin, as if I were in some work of fiction with a broken power balance.
If I had to compare it, it was about as intense as when I first encountered Renua.
Gooseflesh rose all over my body.
‘Still, this is better than back then.’
Back then, I had no power to resist and had truly felt my life was in danger.
But things were different now.
I had the strength to fight a calamity.
The fact that my heart was unnaturally calm in a situation like this was entirely thanks to her.
The GOAT of killing intent.
I’m not thanking her.
-Shing.
I drew the sword strapped to my waist.
All that lay before me was a desolate gorge.
The bastard still hadn’t shown himself even once.
I raised my head and looked up.
Viscous storm clouds covered the sky.
He was beyond them. To catch him, I had to go up there.
How was I supposed to get there?
‘There’s always a way.’
I gripped the sword hilt with both hands and thrust it high into the sky.
I began chanting a spell.
“Kkanttappiya.”
It was right after that.
-KABOOM!
The ground beneath my feet sank as if exploding, and my body shot into the sky, sword in hand.
The black rain falling above me was scattered by the sword wind.
The storm clouds rushed up before my eyes in an instant.
I didn’t stop.
If you’re going to dig a hole, you might as well dig it all the way to the sky.
Still clutching the sword, I rose in a straight line without slowing down.
Then, the moment I entered the storm clouds.
-Ding!
======
[Warning]
You have entered the domain of Rahav, the Despair That Crawls Across the Sky. Field effect 《Despair Erosion》 has been applied.
[Status Ailment Resistance has activated].
======
Text appeared before my eyes.
A notification that I had entered his domain.
So this was what it meant to be a boss monster. It hadn’t appeared when I fought ordinary magical beasts.
A dense concentration of miasma.
Even with [Status Ailment Resistance] active, it still grated on my nerves in a strange way.
It was probably because my proficiency was low.
‘It’s a shame Aurora is my master.’
If my master had been Renua.
No, if I had been assigned a combat-related role regardless of who my master was.
Then my stats could have been boosted, and I could have raised my proficiency too.
It was simply unfortunate that I had neither.
Still, it was only a little uncomfortable; I wasn’t falling into despair in some pathetic fashion.
‘My life is already despair.’
How much more despair could there be?
If I failed to catch this thing and couldn’t gain my freedom, that would be more despairing.
-Rumble-rumble-rumble.
The storm clouds shook violently. I thought it was thunder, but that couldn’t be.
Because these storm clouds were not real storm clouds.
It did not take long to realize what the vibration was.
-KRRRACK!
The tip of my sword tore through the veil.
The moment I rose beyond the storm clouds, my view opened up.
There was neither the blue sky nor the sun that should naturally have been above the clouds.
Instead, an endless black mire stretched out before me. It looked as if the sky and earth had been turned upside down.
And something was crawling through the space between them.
A gigantic ridge.
Segments reminiscent of an insect.
And countless legs sprouting from both sides of those segments.
Its shape was that of a centipede.
A centipede well over several hundred meters long.
Something as large as a mountain range was crawling across the black sky.
Hanging upside down.
Using the sky as the ground.
One of the Three Great Calamities.
Rahav, the Despair That Crawls Across the Sky.
“Ugh.”
The moment I saw it, I shuddered.
It had been creepy even in the game, but seeing it in reality was incomparably more disgusting.
It hadn’t earned the name Despair for nothing.
This bastard literally looks like despair.
-Fwoooooo.
Rahav’s body swelled greatly, as if drawing breath.
The next moment, black smoke poured out from all over its body.
The miasma it spewed clung to the sky like viscous mud, expanding its domain.
Then it used that as a path to move forward, its countless legs going skitter-skitter-skitter.
If I left it like this, it would reach the army’s encampment in no time.
Intercepting it with magic wouldn’t work either. The miasma would serve as a shield and reduce the magic’s power.
I hadn’t come alone for no reason.
Unless someone could remain unharmed by the miasma and approach Rahav at close range, they would be of no help whatsoever.
If the protagonist had been here, I would have brought them along, but that wasn’t the case.
“Let’s try pulling it down first.”
If it crawled with the sky as its ground, then I just had to cut off the legs braced against that ground.
It was a very simple principle.
I climbed onto Rahav’s belly.
To it, my presence was on the level of a bug.
Perhaps it hadn’t noticed me; it paid no attention whether I was there or not.
All the better.
If I stayed still as a dead mouse, it wouldn’t bother with a mere bug.
Then, before I knew it, I’d be bitten.
A stealth mosquito.
Was there anything more frightening in the world?
‘I don’t think so.’
If there was, it would probably be a stealth Renua.
I sheathed my sword.
I rose onto my tiptoes.
I was barely standing on my toes.
It was to minimize the area of my feet touching the ground.
A small golden circle, just large enough to barely encompass a few of those toes, was inscribed on the ground.
-Sssssss…….
Golden mana flowed through my entire body. Its density was so high that heat haze shimmered in the air.
[Oath of Protection], which caused physical abilities to skyrocket exponentially as the circle’s area grew smaller.
Minimize movement.
Maximize destructive power.
My own fighting style, pursuing efficiency to the extreme.
I raised my right hand.
With my index and middle fingers pressed together.
-Snap.
I flicked them lightly.
The mana compressed to its limit burst forth, overlaying reality with the image in my mind.
Normally, I would have to unleash countless sword techniques to cut all these legs.
But what I wielded was a formless blade.
It didn’t matter how many legs it had.
If I had only the will to cut, I could cut as many as I pleased.
It didn’t even have a chance to react.
The result called “severing” simply filled the space I had designated.
-Riiip!
A single cutting sound.
Yet the density of that sound surpassed all imagination.
As if the world itself were being split in half.
The countless legs densely sprouting from its several-hundred-meter-long body were severed all at once.
Innumerable exoskeletons were brutally separated and rained down between the pitch-black streams of rain.
-Kieeeeeeeek!
Rahav, reduced in an instant from a centipede to a snake, let out a scream that tore the air apart.
Its legs, which had been standing on the sky’s mire, were gone, so its fall was only natural.
The mountain-range-sized body that had been hanging upside down slipped from the sky and began plunging headfirst toward the ground.
***
The ground after Leon had departed.
Richard raised his head and looked up at the sky.
“Do you think he’ll be all right? Perhaps we should have gone with him after all.”
Rosanna, who had been looking up at the sky beside Richard, spoke.
“I know he’s strong, but I’m not sure it’s right for him to face a calamity alone.”
“He says he can do it with confidence, so all we can do is trust him.”
“Hmm.”
It wasn’t that she doubted Leon’s abilities, but his opponent was one of the Three Great Calamities.
A being that harbored a natural disaster within its body.
Even now, the Empire’s elite forces had set out on an expedition to fight another calamity, but they had made little progress.
‘This doesn’t seem like something that can be overcome through skill alone…….’
Rosanna continued to stare blankly at the sky, unable to shake her uneasy feeling.
The sky remained dark and gloomy.
The miasma was creeping toward the encampment.
If Leon failed.
Then the army would have to act before it came any closer.
It was just as Rosanna was fidgeting with the pommel of her sword, imagining the worst-case scenario.
-Slash.
“Ugh?!”
A sharply honed wave grazed her skin.
The sensation was like being cut by a sword, and Rosanna reflexively reached for her own sword.
“……”
Rosanna was not the only one who felt it. Everyone there had felt it.
Richard stared at the sky with narrowed eyes.
Mysterious fragments began raining down from the sky.
Just as everyone was becoming wary of the strange phenomenon.
“Commander, over there……!”
Rosanna pointed toward a spot.
The black mire that had been writhing as it crawled toward the encampment suddenly twisted.
Something enormous pushed through the distorted veil, thrashing in midair as it revealed itself.
Rahav, the Despair That Crawls Across the Sky.
It was falling even as it revealed itself.
In a form utterly pathetic for something called a calamity.